Critical Perspectives on Classicism in Japanese Painting, 1600-1700
Publication Year: 2004
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
Cover
Title Page, Copyright Page
Contents
Download PDF (45.5 KB)
pp. v-vi
Illustrations
Download PDF (51.4 KB)
pp. vii-x
Foreword
Download PDF (41.5 KB)
pp. xi-xii
This book is based on a symposium, “Classicism in Japanese Art of the Early Edo Period,” which was sponsored by the Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese Art at the Clark Center in Hanford, California, in June 1999. Many of the institute’s goals are similar to those of other museums both large and small—in particular, collecting, exhibiting, and preserving works of art and ...
Introduction
Download PDF (103.2 KB)
pp. 1-20
In Japan, the seventeenth century was a time of remarkable artistic innovation developing in the midst of ineluctable social change. A protracted phase of civil strife had ended, and a triumphant military clan was inaugurating a new regime of power. This clan, the Tokugawa, installed their administration—a military government (bakufu) headed by a shogun—at Edo, launching the ...
Chapter One. Terminology and Ideology: Coming to Terms with “Classicism” in Japanese Art-Historical Writing
Download PDF (153.8 KB)
pp. 21-52
The very title of this book, Critical Perspectives on Classicism in Japanese Painting, 1600–1700, and the assembled chapters—all of which refer to the seemingly familiar Western concept of classicism—compel us to pose a set of questions. What does it mean when we characterize a period as being “classic” in a European context, and what does it mean when we apply this expression to ...
Chapter Two. Tawaraya Sōtatsu and the “Yamato-e Revival”
Download PDF (796.2 KB)
pp. 53-78
Modern Japanese art historians typically identify Tawaraya Sōtatsu (d. 1643?) as an independent town painter (machi-eshi) active in the city of Kyoto in the early Edo period (1600–1868), or more specifically around 1630.1 Sometime before 1630, the court appointed him to the rank of hokkyō (Bridge of the Law) owing to his great talent, and they provided him with many imperial commissions.2 ...
Chapter Three. The Patrons of Tawaraya Sōtatsu and Ogata Kōrin
Download PDF (120.0 KB)
pp. 79-98
Recent research on the history of Japanese art reveals that a construct known as Japanese art history (Nihon bijutsu shi) began emerging at the start of Japan’s modern era, that is, during the Meiji period (1868–1912) and the Taishō period (1912–1926). This construct contributed to the formation of a Japanese sense of national identity in the early twentieth century and, consequently, ...
Chapter Four. Japanese Exemplars for a New Age: Genji Paintings from the Seventeenth-Century Tosa School
Download PDF (2.6 MB)
pp. 99-132
Is it correct to apply the terms “classicism” and “classical revival” to early Edo art? My own position has changed since 1998, when I coorganized the symposium on which this volume is based. The routine employment—and apparent acceptance—of such terms by most scholars of Japanese art and literature notwithstanding, applying a system of Western aesthetic principles to the study ...
Chapter Five. A New “Classical” Theme: The One Hundred Poets from Elite to Popular Art in the Early Edo Period
Download PDF (588.5 KB)
pp. 133-168
Although the One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each collection (Hyakunin isshu), edited by Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241) in the 1230s, was esteemed as the preeminent compilation of Japanese poetry by the fourteenth century, it did not become a theme for visual art until the early seventeenth century. This fact is surprising when we remember that the genre of imaginary portraits of famous poets ...
Chapter Six. Classical Imagery and Tokugawa Patronage: A Redefinition in the Seventeenth Century
Download PDF (238.7 KB)
pp. 169-186
In art, however, “classical” most commonly refers to a work of the highest rank or importance that becomes a model. For at least five centuries, Western art history has located such a model in the perfected human image and pure forms of Greek art and architecture.1 But in Japanese painting, themes and styles were not consistently revived from a single time period, nor did they comprise ...
Chapter Seven. Uses of the Past: Gion Float Paintings as Instruments of Classicism
Download PDF (318.4 KB)
pp. 187-206
A close study of one set of artworks—the Gion Festival Floats (Gion sairei boko), door paintings once installed in palace halls of Empress Tōfukumon’in (1607–1678)—offers a unique perspective on the imperial family and its role in the so-called classical revival in art of the early Edo period (1600–1868).1 (See Plates 14–15.) Born into the ruling Tokugawa clan seven years after their ...
Afterword
Download PDF (57.7 KB)
pp. 207-212
The essays in this volume reveal both the advantages and the disadvantages inherent in the topic “Classicism in Japanese Art of the Early Edo Period.” The notion of a classical revival in the seventeenth century has a venerable academic pedigree and considerable support from visual evidence. A great many seventeenth-century paintings and works of craft decoration contain images ...
Appendix: Artists and Schools
Download PDF (59.3 KB)
pp. 213-216
Glossary
Download PDF (65.3 KB)
pp. 217-224
Kanji List
Download PDF (1.9 MB)
pp. 225-236
Selected Bibliography
Download PDF (113.0 KB)
pp. 237-260
Contributors
Download PDF (49.6 KB)
pp. 261-262
Index
Download PDF (78.6 KB)
pp. 263-272
Images Follow Page 132
E-ISBN-13: 9780824862046
Print-ISBN-13: 9780824826994
Publication Year: 2004
